We all want a better newsletter.
If you’re sending a regular newsletter, you’re probably always looking for new ways to make it even better and more engaging. In the past I’ve given you 3 tips for a Nifty Newsletter now, here are 6 more things to help you create a better newsletter for your readers.
Keep it short
Long articles have no place in a newsletter. If you absolutely must share them, put a short abstract in the newsletter with a link to the full article on your website. Make sure the abstract is interesting and enticing, but make sure it accurately reflects the content of the article. Luring people to your website only to disappoint them when the article they get is not the article they were promised will not work out well.
Also try to avoid producing a long newsletter with a heap of articles. If you have more than 2 or 3 articles that are more than a paragraph long, you should probably be publishing shorter newsletters more frequently. As more and more people are reading newsletters on mobile devices, they will be spending less and less time scrolling through endless lines of text.
Don’t go overboard with images
Images can look great in a newsletter, but keep in mind that they’re often not displayed by default. So if you have any content that’s essential for people to see, make sure you put it in as text.
It’s also worthwhile to make sure that the newsletter starts with text so that when people see your email in a preview pane, they can see text and get an idea of the content. Otherwise you’ll just be relying on people to download images so they can see your messages and it will only be your strongest advocates who are will do that.
Know what you want to say
You’ll need to have a clear idea what the purpose of your newsletter is. Are you trying to sell products? Trying to get new customers? Do you want to stay front of mind for potential customers? Are you trying to educate? Whatever the purpose of your newsletter, you need to create the content with the purpose in mind. So don’t just start a newsletter because everybody else is, or because someone told you that you should have one. Take the time to figure out what you want to achieve and create content with the desired result in mind.
Headings give clarity
Use headings to separate out features and pieces of text. Most people will only scan your newsletter initially, so you need to make it easy for them to see what’s included and find things they’re interested in. Being able to have a quick scroll through to find the things they’re interested in will keep people interested month after month. A couple of months of getting a big block of text with no break will have people unsubscribing or at best ignoring your newsletter.
There’s another benefit in having a few regular headings. It makes it much easier to find new content for each newsletter as you’ll already have a bit of a map. If you start each newsletter with a couple of heading in place it’s easier to find the content to fill them, and far less daunting than starting with a blank page.
Optimise for mobile
More and more people are reading newsletters on mobile devices so it’s more important than ever to make sure that your newsletter is easy to read on a mobile device. Most providers should be able to give you statistics on what devices and clients are using. Currently, 37% of my newsletter subscribers use mobile devices and nearly 28% of those use iPhones. Which means it’s worth my while to make sure my newsletters are going to be easy to read and have links that are easy to click on using a mobile device.
Share it on social media
If you’re looking to increase your readership and reach, make sure to share your newsletters on social media. Any newsletter will come with a link you can use to share it socially, some providers such as MailChimp will also give you the option to share the email on social media at the time of sending.
If you’d like some help with your newsletter, click here to book a complimentary 30 minute catch up to discuss how I could help you.
